cassandra griffith                                              PAINTING DRAWING COLLAGE

​Ohio born, Cassie has been traveling since she graduated from Columbus College of Art and Design in 2010.  She currently resides in East Tennessee, where the Great Smoky Mountains provide boundless amounts of inspiration and awe.  

Largely influenced by the natural world, her artwork takes on a dreamy quality when combined with her love of folklore and myth.  She has separated her work into two bodies; the Natural and the Supernatural. While both worlds influence each other, each is rooted in it's own mythos.  

The Natural world is an intrinsic part of being alive.  We are as much a part of nature as any rabbit or leaf. To deny this is to deny our humanity.  Creativity is also an intrinsic part of life.   Just as nature creates rose blooms and comets streaking across the sky, the artist creates life in their own image.  The forest is our nervous system and a heartbeat is the beat of a wing upon the sky.  Cassie creates works of art that revel in this connectivity and in the beauty of nature.

The Supernatural world, however, refers to that which remains unseen.  Hidden just behind the veil that separates the physical world from the planes of spirit, ancient myths and legends remain very much alive. They reveal themselves through dreams and visions and through the stories of old.  Her wish is to breathe life back into these stories and to bring them forth into the physical realm through visual art.

Her current body of work was inspired by the hot, muggy summers experienced working outdoors in East Tennessee.  When the temperature rises in the Smokies, the mountains and surrounding valleys become home to thousands of different types of swarming, humming life forms.  Impossible to ignore, the buzzing reverberates through the landscape magnifying the presence of often miniscule creatures hidden by the dense foliage.  Her work seeks to bring a visual vocalisation to the sounds one can hear through the long summer months that is both vibrant and delicate, like the creatures depicted.